Auckland Transport announced yesterday that they along with the Papakura Local Board will build a 250m covered walkway from the Papakura train station that will also double as shelter for the bus stops.

Papakura walkway

A modern and covered 250-metre walkway will link Papakura Train Station to the town centre.

The Papakura Local Board and Auckland Transport are working together to provide the walkway along Railway Street West and Averill Street (to the mid-block pedestrian crossing).

It is designed to provide residents and commuters with more shelter and improved access between the Papakura Library and Museum, the Papakura Art Gallery, the train station and businesses in the town centre.

The new public transport network for south Auckland will provide more connections between buses and trains in Papakura when introduced by the end of 2016.

Papakura Local Board Chair Bill McEntee says community feedback shows a need for a safer and more accessible connection from the train station to the town centre.

“Engaging with the local community has been an important part of developing Papakura as a metropolitan centre and making it easier and more comfortable for people to who use the train station to get to the town centre”.

Papakura Station is one of Auckland’s busiest stations, used by more than 1700 people every day. “With future growth and development in the Papakura area, it is important that we improve local access to the train station from the town centre,” says Mr McEntee.

Auckland Transport’s Delivery Manager South East, Clement Reeve says the project will see a new, taller and wider timber or glass finished covered walkway which will incorporate existing bus stops/shelters to create a softer and more welcoming enclosure.

“The design will allow for future custom build panels into the walkway structure that could include images, electronic displays and carved artwork.”

Construction of the walkway is expected to start in the first half of 2016 and will take about five months to complete.

The map below shows where the walkway will cover

Papakura walkway map

I’m not familiar with the area so feel free to correct me but it seems like the section on the western side of Railway St and on Averill St is trying to compensate for the wasteland of parking created by the Countdown carpark.

Share this

27 comments

    1. Not on google maps. Must be a layer mistake in Council’s presser image?

      There often tend to be a hundred-odd things from yesteryear underneath the map layers you get electronically these days.

  1. I like it – the covered walkways on Park Road near the hospital (which extend quite a bit) work pretty well – ironically even on hot dry days like now, as they provide just a bit of sunshade too.

  2. There are existing shelters along Railway Street West on the eastern and western sides. It didn’t really offer much ‘protection’ from the elements and this design doesn’t seem much of an improvement over what is currently there. It’s sad to think it won’t take long for the glass parts to be covered in graffiti as the existing shelters are.

  3. Not sure about the mapping with the green ‘countdown’. Nice pedestrian walk way idea. The links to the bus, and the kiss and ride are pretty hideous and tortured. For a pedestrian to get from the bus stop or the trains they have to cross the bus entry and the kiss and ride entry and exit. To compound matters the real estate company that is next to the current bus entry has clawed back all of its car parks. So what you get is train and bus customers fighting to squeeze through to the sheltered area. Better would be to eliminate cars completely from that side of the bus train link put the kiss and riders on the eastern side of the railway. Keep cars out altogether and prioritise bus entry and exits to speed up the PT. Railway st west and wood street intersection the way that it currently is must be a dog for the bus drivers trying to get in and out of the bus bay. I would continue the shelter over the railway as at Ellerslie.

  4. The structure as depicted is open to the prevailing wind. I’ve sat at Papakura waiting for a bus to arrive and the rain can easily be blown under the existing cover….and you get lovely and wet.

    The structure on the station side of the street should not be open to the wind from across the road. I suppose it might help if you walk behind the structure rather than under it.

    1. Had a rail bus driver splash me with rainwater from the curb and wife on purpose when sitting there waiting when the rail bus replacements stopped at those shelters..

  5. Meanwhile Henderson is again ignored. Stuck with a crap train station and a sorry excuse for a bus interchange. AC is always saying they want to improve Henderson, yet their inaction is their way of telling the people of Henderson where to shove it. It was bad enough that Bob Harvey & Waitakere City Council left it to turn into a crime ridden hole and now AC is doing the same. Westgate will get everything. New Lynn continues to get better. Manukau is being majorly improved. Otahuhu is getting it’s bus interchange. Now Papakura is being improved. Need I go on. But poor old Henderson get’s the finger.

      1. Urban renewal/revitalisation for Henderson has been talked about and supposedly planned for 12+ years. Yet not a single thing eventuated. I seriously doubt this time will be different. People and businesses are being pushed away from Henderson due to crime and being so run down and unattractive. The council don’t care, and nor do the police.

        1. After the council building/train station there hasn’t been much of anything, except plastic drums with lights in them that cost hundreds of thousands that I don’t think are around anymore… uh “art” I think it was called… The train station is completely yuck with disgusting toilets and broken/etched glass never replaced. The station is also in dire need of gating to keep off the crazy idiots at night. Only time I go to the mall there is when I go to PB tech (which is outside the mall), or occasionally the movies or the warehouse (but I train for that, don’t want to park there…), otherwise I go to lincoln rd.

        2. Yeah. Totally agree. It’s like the toilets never get cleaned. Vandals are always smashing the glass on the air bridge. The elevators smell like ash trays and a toilet. The platform is always filled with scummy little pieces of trash. Trashy people like hanging around in trashy places. The security guards never do anything. They don’t even monitor the air bridge nor platform at night. I’d say nobody watches the camera’s. The whole place is just an ash tray, saliva pit, toilet, rubbish bin and thug magnet. I’m surprised the council and AT haven’t ditched henderson like everyone else.

    1. Have to agree on the comments on Henderson and the state of the station. A lot of talk and little investment over the years. I hope the Panuku development board and their “unlock” classification does help in some way to change things along with the newly formed local business association.

      To me this “unlock” classification sadly sounds like the necessary funds to attract developers and business owners won’t be spent. The area needs to get some serious ambition and direction if it wants people to take up leases in the area.

    2. What’s your view on what’s wrong with the train station at Henderson? It’s better than many.

      It absolutely needs an overbridge to cross the road. The volume of foot traffic to / from is too much for the pedestrian crossing there now. Plus there are quite a few drivers in the area who run red lights and ignore the crossings. I’ve nearly been wiped out twice in Henderson by people roaring through the middle of a red light…..not just barging an amber light.

      For cover, I wait up in the glassed in area and go down the escalator when the train I want appears. The platforms are a bit exposed.

      1. For a station that serves a major town/city centre, it is very poor. Stations in other major town centre’s are gated, have proper security, have customer service kiosks, proper shelter, and certainly don’t receive the level of vandalism and other crime that Henderson does. There are no train timetables on the air bridge nor at the bus stop(s). During Project DART, Bob Harvey promised that his pet project was that Henderson station was going to be a “Baby Britomart”. That’s was the biggest joke of the century. I’ve been pushing AT to carry out critically needed improvements, but it just falls on deaf ears.

        1. Even cleaning the glass canopy would be nice. Do the people at Auckland Transport there have their eyes closed when they leave the building or are they too scared to venture in to Henderson?

  6. Would concur with Peter there.

    That car park needs to go as it is a safety hazard for bus, pedestrian and other road users.
    The shelters are a novel idea and great connecting the station to the core of the Papakura Metropolitan Centre especially as the replace redevelops.

    Just can’t help think of the vandalisation though

  7. PAPAKURA would benefit from a policed car park, station and trains. Too many losers wrecking the good work and stealing etc from commuters.

  8. Visited the other week & the team of cleaners getting rid of the graffiti, I asked how often they have to do this and it was every week. Nice glass etchings too, some permanently scratched. They have the old train control system inside the station as a museum piece which is pretty antiquated piece of history.

  9. This the station that the girl was attacked at this week? How about spending the money on more security and cctv all down the southern line.

  10. When full trains come in and the passengers get off they all seem to walk down the stairs and into the small gap between the bus concourse and the kiss and ride. As often happens full buses and trains arrive together and the space between the car park and the buses is fairly full. The intersection is right there and the bus drivers are fully engaged with the traffic. Fewer passengers use the access ramp behind the shops.The whole area needs to be carefully thought about by people who use it-the local board are fairly car centric.

  11. The cold winter rain is mostly from the South Westerly direction and blows into the existing shelter on the east side of the Railway Street West. When arriving at platforms 2 & # walking down the ramp behind Warehouse stationary to the pedestrian crossing it is pretty sheltered from the south west and a good alternative ti the exposed walkway on the other side even without roofing. The covered seating for buses departing from the countdown frontage is good shelter and enlarging and extending that would be very nice. Thank you to the boards who are putting this forward as.
    As for the car par at the moment if it is inclement then I take a shortcut across it so that I’m not exposed to the elements for as long.

  12. A higher priority, and cheaper, for me would be to reinstall the lock system that was on the bike storage area. My dad had his bike badly damaged two days ago by idiots trying to wrench it free. He’d be quite prepared to pay for a key-card as of old to stop this being a possibility. Fewer people will use bikes to get to the public transport if they are not able to be safely stored.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *